Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz informed the media that if the opportunity had arisen during the two countries’ battle, Israel would have executed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Israel’s public radio station Kan Thursday evening, adding that the military had “searched a lot”.
“Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn’t realistic,” Katz told Kan.
He told Israeli television Channel 13 on Thursday that Israel will stop attempting assassinations because “there is a difference between before and after the ceasefire”.
Katz stated during the conflict that Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist,” just days after allegations surfaced that Washington had opposed Israeli intentions to assassinate him.
However, on Kan, Katz encouraged Khamenei to remain in a bunker.
“He should learn from the late Nasrallah, who sat for a long time deep in the bunker,” he said, referring to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah, who Israel killed in a Beirut air strike in September 2024.
The activities of Iran’s supreme leader, who has not left the country since assuming office, are closely monitored and kept secret.
Katz claimed Thursday that Israel retained aerial supremacy over Iran and was prepared to strike again.
“We won’t let Iran develop nuclear weapons and threaten (Israel) with long-range missiles,” he said.
In an interview with Channel 12, Katz confessed that Israel does not know where all of Iran’s enriched uranium is but that its air attacks had crippled the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment capabilities.
“The material itself was not something that was supposed to be neutralised,” he said of the enriched uranium.
The impact of Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear project has been debated.
A leaked US intelligence assessment claimed that the programme had pushed Iran back a few months, while Katz and other Israeli and US public figures predicted that the damage would take years to repair.
Israel and the Arab nation both claimed victory in a 12-day battle that ended with a ceasefire on June 24.
The conflict began on June 13 when Israel initiated a bombing campaign it claimed was intended to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, an ambition Iran has long rejected.
